News About This Theater

The Colonnade Theatre originally opened in 1919 and closed in 2000. It was donated to the Twin Valley Players theater group in early-2008 by its previous owners, the Troutman family, who had owned the Colonnade Theatre since 1955.

The Twin Valley Players raised funds to carry out a feasibility study to renovate the former movie house into a performing arts venue. However, these plans were never carried out and the building was demolished to build a new duel use live theatre and movie house.

The Colonnade is a reverse auditorium theatre. You enter on either side of the screen and are looking at the seats facing you. It’s one of several such theatres still in Pennsylvania. Others still existing are the Majestic in Pottsville, and the Columbia in Brookville. None of them are currently showing commercial movies. The Majestic does run very late run childrens films for free, but not as a commercial film venue.

Work will soon begin on renovations as two grants have been awarded to the theater group which owns the theater. However, the renovations will not be a true restoration, though the theaters cinematic history will be respected to some degree. Here is an article about the grants and the theater group’s plans with some additional history about the Colonnade: View link

Status should be changed to DEMOLISHED. Yes, completely wiped off the map in fall of 2013 for the construction of a hiddeous box that serves as a movie and live theatre owned by the Twin Valley Players.
It’s funny how so many of these “renovation” and sometimes even “Restoration” projects become “scrape/new construction” projects due to “structural concerns” once the said group had already milked every possible donation and grant out of the community they victimized.

Wonder how the Troutman family feels about their decision to donate grandma' s old theatre to these clowns?